In the Canadian Forces gays/women can do whatever they want, women can and do serve in the infantry/combat arms and women have died in battle in Afghanistan and I assume a gays have done the same. They have been allowed to do so since the early 80s.
That being said, I've noticed a lot of fallacious arguments in these DADT threads. Everybody who is against repelling it seems to think that gays will start parading around waving rainbow flags and organizing orgies in the barracks. I question the logic behind this argument. I've served 3 years so far, including in the infantry, and among the hundreds I've worked with I've only met one openly gay person (he couldn't have hidden it even if he wanted to), and guess what? He was still a soldier, he was still bound by military and civilian law. This includes DEPORTMENT, the way you act, the way you carry yourself, the way you speak to others, and he was just as liable for that as the rest of us. Nobody's going to go around advertising it. Thats enough to police most combat support and combat service support soldiers (all the non doorkickers). Just like I wont go into the women's quarters and start buttraping everything that moves, they wont harrass their male counterparts because the consequences are a lot graver in the military than in civilian life.
Combat arms units are even more capable of policing themselves. There is a lot of macho-ness, self-confidence and even cockiness within these units. After all, when it comes down to it, do you civilians want soldiers who think they CANT kick any enemy's ass, who dont WANT to face him and mess him up when the proverbial Chinese horde comes into your neighborhood? It takes a certain personality to willingly join the infantry/combat arms, and this personality, as far as I've seen is quite similar regardless of race, sex, gender, intelligence level, socioeconomic background, education level, age or sexual orientation. I dont know about US Army/Marine Corps infantry training, but up here it still weeds out the weaklings, and if a woman who would get pregnant to get out of a tour makes it into a combat arms unit, then that is the fault of the training system. All this stuff about having sex in the field (in a combat arms unit) is just ridiculous, after just 5 days of absolutely no sleep, no showers, field rations and all that, the only thing thats sexy is a warm meal, a cold beer and your bed, and yes, I've been to the field with some fairly attractive women.
HOWEVER, and its a big however, like I said up here this happened in the 80s when absolutely nothing was going on for us. This is not the sort of transformation that should take place during a time of war, because it will be rough and may compromise morale of the troops doing the fighting. You dont like that argument? Too bad, pound sand. Just like the military exists to support and defend society, most soldiers/sailors/airmen are involved, however indirectly, in supporting the combat arms, and ultimately, the infantry, who kill the enemy, take the ground and hold it, so if the infantrymen dont like, you dont do it, because in the end we're all here to help them do the real work, its that simple. Sure, during peace time you can tell them to suck it up, buttercup, but doing that in wartime is almost criminal. They can repell DADT all they want, in practice nothing will change because of this, and it will ultimately make the transition even more difficult.
